Frequent field visits to rural villages also mean many long and uncomfortable bus or train rides. During a recent visit to villages around Tanjore in Tamil Nadu, the Villgro fellows logged over 11 hours on public buses in one day. A number of factors contribute to an extremely uncomfortable trip: 80% humidity in 40C weather, many human bodies squeezed into a limited space, general dusty and traffic polluted air, and ultimately too many hours sweating into the same clothes.
At first, I rationalized to myself that the discomfort was only bothering me and in my head because my North American accustomed self was not acclimated yet. But the reality is that time doesn’t bring immunity to the heat, because the other fellows (including a Tamilian) were just as sweaty and uncomfortable as me we began to stick to each other – real fellow bonding. So instead, I sought comfort in the thought of eventually reaching our guest house in Tanjore, where a shower and an A/C room would grant me relief. That was my light at the end of the tunnel.
It occurred to me then: that light at the end of the tunnel is a privilege that 60% of India doesn’t have. It isn’t a real struggle for me to sit through a day of sticky bus rides nor, if extrapolated further, is it really courageous of me to quit my management consulting job for the social sector in India, because at the end of the day (or year), there’s always an emergency eject button. If I were really miserable in my fellowship project and wanted to return to the comfort and luxuries of the developed world, I can opt out of India. In fact for many of us working in the social development sector, this job is a choice that we have made and a choice that we can undo.
Next
to my apartment is a construction site, and through the window is the sight of women in colorful saris balancing pans of sand or concrete on their heads transferring building materials to the masons. They work through the day, in the hot, stifling 45C heat of Jamshedpur, hotter than Death Valley in the States. I can safely say that no one gets accustomed to working in this kind of heat, but what choice do they have?
The rural poor don’t have a call option out of these harsh conditions. They don’t have the savings, the education, or the opportunities to opt out of their discomfort and misery. They must continue to toil without the comfort of seeing an end in sight. The unforgiving harsh conditions of India’s climate and poverty are their everyday reality, but that’s why social entrepreneurship is important. We are working to give them a call option to get out.
The discomforts that sometimes come about while working in the developing rural sector serves as a good reminder of the important potential of the impact achieved by the work that we do. If social enterprises can achieve providing the poor with that light at the end of the tunnel, it will be worth all the sticky bus rides we have to sit through.
